Pages

Friday, 26 March 2010

Welcome to another ramble round things and places that caught this liberty-lover’s eye this week . . . without any mention of David Bain. Apart from this one.

Never mind bloody Earth Hour this weekend. Auckland’s Racket Bar is holding a Power Hour tomorrow night, featuring the world's longest multi-box chain, coal-fired air-conditioning and a light show visible from outer space.! Cool.Plus: BRING IN YOUR OWN ELECTRICAL APPLIANCE AND RECEIVE A FREE TIGER BEER! Sounds like a place to be. --> Power Hour at the Racket Bar

And Libertarianz leader Richard McGrath encourages all New Zealanders to turn on all their lights during Earth Hour this Saturday night. “The Dark Ages were a grim chapter in human history. I don’t feel the need to relive those times.” --> Light Up The Country This Earth Hour, Say Libz

Another carbon tax domino falls—Nicholas Sarkozy has given in to reality and to political pressure, and pulled his country’s much feted carbon tax scheme. So if he can see sense . . . --> France backs down on plans for carbon tax

One would hope that those who parade the “neutrality” of Radio NZ journalists might give some thought to John Stossel’s consideration of government-paid journalists. “That journalists are supposed to be the watchdogs, not lapdogs of government doesn't resonate with many on the Left. … “ Journalists shouldn’t get government funds. Using NPR and PBS [and Radio NZ] as a defense reminds me of the child who killed his parents then pleaded for mercy because he was an orphan. “--> Journalism's Parasites [hat tip Thrutch]

Yet another economist is getting “sick of reports that talk about these massive benefits of government spending without actually looking at them in context with, you know, opportunity cost.” Matt Nolan lets rip. --> I’m sick of this …

Speaking of Avatar, director James “Dickhead” Cameron politely calls for a debate with climate skeptics. On the behalf of “boneheads” everywhere, Anne McElhinny accepts. “It appears some negative comments about the nonsensical politics of Avatarby me and others did not go unnoticed by the richest man in Hollywood who described the criticism as ‘ranting.’ So, James Cameron I accept your invitation.” I almost feel sorry for the over-precious poseur. --> James Cameron – I Accept

“The front page story in the Dominion-Post [yesterday] is about disabled woman Margaret Page. She wants to die, and so is refusing food and water, effectively starving herself to death. The hospice she is in, St John of Godhome, is refusing to intervene. And so they should be. This is fundamentally a question of autonomy. Our lives belong to us, not to someone's Invisible Sky Fairy, and certainly not to the state.” Bravo! If only Idiot/Savant would follow that principle consistently himself! --> The right to die

The Family’s Commission CEO offers “a heaven-sent opportunity” to close the bloody place down. “Blend the bloody thing in somewhere and give it six months to wither and die as the departmental CEO redirects its funds to something useful,” says Adolf. --> Now Get Rid Of It

“A guy phoned up who worked for NASA who was interested in how we took the pictures,” Mr Harrison told The Times. “He wanted to know how the hell we did it. He thought we used a rocket. They said it would have cost them millions of dollars.” But not when you use a balloon, a camera and a roll of duct tape. --> Journey into space with a balloon and duct tape

Lisa Van Damme’s Van Damme Academy offers a unique curriculum for students, and “Director’s Teas” where parents themselves get to experience it. Check out, for example, this masterful art appreciation class with “Mr Travis.” It starts unusually, but you’ll be amazed what – in just twenty minutes -- he can show you in what you thought was a simple painting. --> The VDA Art Curriculum - Part 3 of 8 [Click through for the full lecture]

Rodbeater has been trolling again—so excerpts of his trash have been posted to his Redbaiter’s Bile blog. Head along and “enjoy” some edited samples of his invective—and get a clue why this idiot is banned. --> Redbaiter’s Bile

The argument is over, and the liberals have won. But Matthew Yglesias reckons ObamaCare is their high tide. Sounds like wishful thinking-but a lot are buying that Kool-Aid. --> The End of Big Government Liberalism

“You need a way to maintain your morale—to counter the effects of dispiriting circumstances. In short you need a solid basis to expect a better future. What can provide it when the news headlines fill you with revulsion? “The virtue of optimism. .. But [by this I mean] a very particular type of optimism. It is not wishful thinking.. It is confidence in one's own potency, and it has to be maintained and fought for like any virtue.....”--> Tom Minchin - Hope is Dead - Long Live Optimism

Who are "the forgotten men and women of American health care”?The doctors, of course. How many have heard from them?-->Who cares about the doctors?

“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.” – Frédéric Bastiat

Here’s something to ponder for fans of “efficient markets.” Buyers of bonds now rate Berkshire Hathaway’s bonds safer than those peddled by the US Government. Which means, as Bloomber reports, “The bond market is now saying that it’s safer to lend to Warren Buffett than Barack Obama.” --> A Fiscal Train Wreck

“A sudden drop-off in investor demand for U.S. Treasury notes is raising questions about whether interest rates will finally begin a march higher—a climb that would jack up the government's borrowing costs and spell trouble for the fragile housing market.” And not just for the housing market. This is the beginning of the end for that school of economists who maintain that government debt is the basis on which currency is organised.--> Hoping for a rich uncle, part two

“AsMargaret Thatcher once said, "the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." Michael Barone reports, “in recent weeks U.S. Treasury bonds have lost their status as the world's safest investment…”--> Obama, Meet Reality aka The Bond Market

On better things . . . Rachel Miner “shares some tools which have added much joy for me by helping me capture the precious moments of parenting. There are so many experiences that are both easy to forget and worthy of remembering." --> Tool: Capturing the Precious Times

"We may have lost the first round in the health care battle,” says Paul Hsieh. “But if we follow these principles,the final victory can still be ours." --> "ObamaCare: The Coming Battles"

Earth doesn’t care whether our lights are on or not; if we’re producing or not; which Korea is starving, or free, or not. The night lights of Korea tell the story of man’s emergence from slavery into freedom.For in the slave state that is North Korea, “Earth Hour” is for life.--> Earth doesn’t care about our lights, our electricity

New book Genetic Roulette purports to take apart genetic engineering, detailing “65 separate claims that the technology causes harm in a variety of ways.” The Academics Review website dismantles every one of them. Science is the winner. --> Genetic Roulette

“Music,” by Theo van Oostrom

If you’re somebody who only reads Penthouse for the articles, then you’ll have already seen this: Penthouse magazine taking down Al Gore. “Al Gore and his pals in the science establishment want us to totally change our lives because of a theory that might not even be true. Have the sacred cows of global warming been gored beyond repair?” -->An Inconvenient Fraud?

David Harriman’s Logical Leap: Induction in Physics won’t be available for purchase until this summer. But his ‘Periodic Table of the Sciences’ is available now. “The Periodic Table of the Sciences is a graphical description of .. science education. Within each column, the table shows the stages of development (from bottom to top) of the five major theories that are essential to a basic education in science. The order of the columns (from left to right) reflects the fact that each theory is a prerequisite for the next. “The concepts of science have a necessary order. Kepler’s laws of planetary motion must come before Newton’s law of universal gravitation, electric charge before atomic theory, and atomic theory before modern biology. This logical order is shown in the table— vertically in the development of each theory and horizontally in the progression from one theory to the next. Thus, the Periodic Table of the Sciences captures the integration and the hierarchy of scientific knowledge. “For students and teachers, the table serves as a reference that demands an answer to two crucial questions: what previous knowledge does an idea rest on, and where does the new knowledge lead?” --> Periodic Table of the Sciences--> For a more in-depth analysis, see Harriman’s articles in The Objective Standard

It’s amazing what’s now available on the internet. Philosopher Stephen Hicks has put his entire 15-lecture Philosophy of Education course online, in video. Normally you’d pay thousands of dollars for this . . . but it’s yours for the price of your internet connection. My bet is most of you will head straight to the ‘Big Bang’ and ‘The Creation Story’ in Lecture 2. Me, I might head straight for what he has to say about Post-Modernism in Lecture 14. --> Philosophy of Education: An Introductory Course

This is “must-see TV” says Tim Blair. “A couple of things about the BBC’s excellent Generation Jihad investigation: “One, baby jihadis born and raised in the West are driven entirely by ideology (says one British extremist, previously jailed for terrorism offences: “I’ve never been a victim of poverty or any kind of family break-up or anything like that"). “And two, these jihadis are a serious menace, despite – paradoxically – being complete losers.”

Eric Crampton talks about the hoped-for rise of “The Ninny State.” Apparently you and I are being mocked, and we didn’t even know! --> Ninny state?

Life is rough for warmists right now. “In Britain, the 'Climate Change Museum' has been forced to change its name to the 'Climate Science Museum' and in Russia, the country's top climatologist has come out and said that: ‘The winter of 2009-10 was one of the most severe in the European part of Russia for more than 30 years and in Siberia it was perhaps the record-breaking coldest ever.’ “And, as a result of all this contrary data, the global warming theorists are now threatening violence. “ --> Ian O'Doherty: Don't tase me, bro

Greenpeace isn’t just paid by the government to lobby them—taking money straight out f taxpayers’ pockets--it also steals directly from its members’ bank accounts. But it should be no surprise: greenies are less honest than the rest of us. We knew it just by watching Al Gore’s and Paul Watson’s lips moving, but turns out research shows it too! --> Watchdog warns Greenpeace donors--> Goodies behaving badly

To suppose all consumers to be dupes, and all merchants and manufacturers to be cheats, has the effect of authorising them to be so, and of degrading all the working members of the community.” - ARJ Turgot (1727-1781)

There’s less private healthcare in the States than you think, and more government-run healthcare than you’d expect—and guess where it’s already going going wrong. But it’s not hard to fix, says Liberty Scott, iff you did the opposite of what Obama’s doing. --> Why Obama's health reforms are quite wrong

I’ve started to load up content on my Organon Architecture blog. Hopefully, before very long, I’ll have most of what I want up there, but there’s still a fair way to go. Still, it’s looking pretty good already. But then, I would say that, wouldn’t I. --> Organon Architecture Blog

Remember that discussion we had a while back about art and the holocaust? About Munch’s ‘Scream,' which was painted long before the Holocaust, but which some of you felt evoked it anyway by its feeling of total despair. Contrast that with Henryck Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, a piece of musical art which was written about the Holocaust, but which has the opposite feeling altogether. Think about that, and we’ll talk about it next week.

Thursday, 25 March 2010

There’s a word out of history that’s come back to haunt us. It’s called “Progressive,” and it’s pure poison.

A decade ago if you’d got a dollar for every time you heard the word ‘Progressive,’ you’d still be in the poorhouse. Now? You hear the word on every street corner, and in every internet chat room. If you had only half a dollar for every time you heard it (which is all today’s dollar is worth anyway) you’d still quite easily make Forbes’ list of billionaires.

So what happened, and when. As Google Trends indicates In 2004, something happened to turn it all around and bring back a word from a hundred years ago. Take a look:

Clearly it’s a new thing, and clearly it’s being used to delineate the same, or similar characteristics, as the world socialist . . .

. . . and the word “liberal.” (NB: You’ve got to be careful checking Google Trends for “liberal” since you’re liable to wind up measuring Tony Abbott’s mates in Australia.)

So what happened in 2004? Any theories? To rule out just one theory: it’s not Glenn Beck, if that’s what you’re thinking. He didn’t take off until last year.

So what’s the explanation?

Here’s one theory.

At the turn of the century, the advocates of big government picked up the word “progress” and started to bandy it around. “Progressive” they called themselves when they started to implement government daycare, ban alcohol, and set up government control of the banking system and wartime central planning of the commanding heights of the economy—despite none of these representing any kind of progress but the government gaining ground and liberty being forced to yield.

Socialists laid claim to the world “progress,” just as they laid claim to the notion that socialism was “scientific” –- and their Old Right and “liberal” opponents sat back let them do it.

What a victory!

By masquerading as being in the vanguard of progress, they made their opponents, by implication, appear as the apostles of reaction. Of the antediluvian. Of the status quo. It made their opponents look like dinosaurs, and their opponents stood back and let them do it.

What an underhanded victory!

So why, later on, did they drop the nomenclature? Not because they had no right to it. They dropped it because they saw something better.

Just as Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt and their fellow travellers stole the word “progress” when they had no right to it, Franklin Roosevelt and his fellow-travellers stole the word “liberal” even though they had no right to that. But no matter. They saw it was no longer being used, they picked it up, and they used it for all it was worth even though it was the last way to describe their aims.

Where liberalism used to mean the belief in small governments and the importance of liberty and equality before the law—a belief that had flowered in the sweet, liberal air of the freest time in human history, the nineteenth century--now in the mid-twentieth century it was held to mean being made equal by the law. By law wielded by big government.

Quite some sleight of hand, that one. Exchanging “negative liberties” for “positive liberties, and making small government = big government, and all by the use of one word.

What could be more ingenious!

But now, after a century-and-counting of never-ending Square Deals and Fair Deals-- of New Deals, Great Societies and Fascist New Frontiers—and ever bigger and ever-more intrusive government to remedy the never-ending failure of every promised Utopia to arrive, it was clear that particular jig was up. Up for good. It was clear even to moronic numb-nuts and Democratic Party planners (but I repeat myself) that modern “liberalism” is nothing more than old-style socialism, with all the incumbent failures and bad aroma thereof.

Something had to be done to add perfume to the stink of failure so the Grand Old Project could go on as before.

Enter (stage left) Hope. And Change. And the return of an old friend: “Progressivism.”

You think it’s a coincidence that Mr “Hope and Change” arrived on your doorstep at the same time as that revivified old word did?

This was one dog that learned from all the old tricks in the Alinsky-Gramsci toolbox. One young dog who knew how his prior masters had tamed the populace with the help of a word, and wanted to work the same magic. He grabbed the mantle of “progress,” and once again his opponents let him get away with it.

On the face of it there’s no direct link—but there is one nonetheless.

Can you spot it?

It’s a moral link.

1. Let’s look at Obamacare. Obama’s health care plan, famously touted as “extending health care to 32 million Americans, was introduced to America on the justification that every American is every other American’s keeper—that they each have a moral “duty” to each other--and the state exists to ensure that relationship is enforced. And since Republican party apologists agree with that too, it’s no wonder they entered the Obamacare debate morally disarmed, and ended it trounced. They agreed with that proposition that the state exists to enforce charity, so how could they disagree when a more consistent proponent of that doctrine calls their bluff. (Watch that happening here to Stephen Moore.) No wonder they lost.

2. How about Paula Bennett’s so-called “welfare reform”? Shuffling around the deck chairs while the Titanic welfare bill sinks us all. New Zealand’s now-bloated welfare state is premised on the notion that every new Zealander is every other New Zealander’s keeper—that we each have a moral “duty” to reach other--and the state is there to enforce that. National’s lukewarm “welfare reforms” don’t challenge that a whit—they accept the notion that the moral cannibalism of the welfare state is a given; that the money extracted from Peter to dole out to Paul represents an “entitlement” to Paul; that while the state may occasionally shuffle around how Paul (or Pauline) is kept, or what his (or her) entitlement is called, or how often Pauline (or Paul) has to front up to re-register for their “entitlement,” that “entitlement” itself—their passport to ravage the pockets of the productive -- must never, ever, be challenged. That’s the premise on which Paula Bennett is working, and also the basis on which she’s being attacked. That’s why these reforms are argued on the improvements they’ll supposedly make to the beneficiaries, instead of how they might benefit those who are forced to pay for them. No wonder the “reforms” are so tepid, and will arguably just make things worse.

3. So how about that mining, huh? Time for a reality check, here. National isn’t “freeing up” government land for mining because it wants the economy to surge ahead. It simply wants to “let out” that land so they can rope in some help to pay that burgeoning welfare bill. And it’s a biggy. To their credit, some members of the National cabinet recognise that with one-in-ten New Zealanders now receiving a benefit (358,000 NZers at the last count), the Titanic welfare bill is slipping out of our grasp and may be the iceberg that finally sinks us. They recognise that if the National-led Government is borrowing $250 million a week to maintain those 358,000 at others’ expense, they will very shortly need some others to help pick up the tab. And since the premise that every new Zealander must be every other New Zealander’s keeper must (apparently) never be challenged, Gerry Brownlee (to his discredit) wants to use mining companies the way Margaret Thatcher used North Sea oil companies--to pay in royalties to keep the welfare state from bankruptcy. Gerry wants to dig, baby, dig –- not to make the country rich, but to keep the state’s welfare coffers full. No wonder we’re stuffed.

Can you now see the moral connection with each : Creating new “entitlements,” and refusing to cut back old ones. More specifically, refusing to recognise “entitlements” for what they are: which is alms, extracted at the point of a gun.

It’s a form of moral disarmament—and it’s the reason the welfare rolls are increasing, your tax bills are rising (roll on that GST rise, eh!), and why every single argument against the advance of the welfare state is repelled before its even fully advanced: Because every mainstream proponent on both sides of all three arguments accepts the same fundamental premise that empowers the welfare state:

The creation and maintenance of an “entitlement culture”—of a state in which everyone is given the moral imprimatur to live at everyone else’s expense.

The idea that one persons means can become another person’s ends—by the power of law.

The notion of a “duty” to be our brother’s keeper—at the point of a gun, if necessary.

That need itself is the moral claim that trumps all others—with that need made an “entitlement” by the power of government.

I needed a ‘Family Tree of Economics’-–which you might also call a Family Tree of Economists--for a project a few friends are working on (don’t worry, I’ll tell you about it shortly).

Click to enlarge.

I couldn’t find a decent one, so I produced my own. Here’s a firstthirdfourth fifth draft. Comments?

UPDATE 1: Thanks for your comments. A few improvements made. Any more to make?

UPDATE 2: Thanks again. A few additions, and few more corrections made. What do you think? A little too busy now, perhaps?

UPDATE 3: Okay, this latest version has a lot more changes. And it’s a lot more busy. I think I need to start cutting . . .

UPDATE 4: Now we're really getting there.

I think this is a vast improvement on the last version, which was losing most of the clarity.

You’ll note, among other things, that there are two general streams of thought emerging out of history—one of which, with some exceptions, is largely ignored by the mainstream—and the other of which is largely in praise of big government.

That the last time there was general agreement was back just after the Marginalist Revolution, around the turn of the last century, out of which ‘progressive’ era all the various fragmented schools of today really emerged.

You might note too the profound distance between the two Britons Philip Wicksteed and Alfred Marshall over the direction of the Marginalist Revolution—a distance measured both by their separation in the chart and reflected in Wicksteed’s (correct) assertion that Marshall and his followers were insufficiently aware of how radical that revolution was, making them little more than “a school of apologists” for the failures of the classical school to construct a valid theory of value.

That there’s really no such thing as a “neo-liberal” school—a “school” which exists only the minds of Susan St John, Jane Kelsey and their fellow travellers.

That for some decades after the British Classical School codified the study of economics, Karl Marx’s version of their work virtually had the English-speaking world to itself—which explains a lot--but his influence in economics a century later was less so than it was in other fields.

So it’s getting there. Mind you, it’s still not perfect. I haven’t included all the economists who feature on the various ’ten most influential economists’ lists of all-time, or even of the twentieth-century. And I’m now under heavy pressure from Will Wilkinson and a couple of others to add the New Institutional School . . . even though I have got Ronald Coase in there. At the moment.

Rest assured that I’ll be speaking to a historian of economic thought on Wednesday—as you do—to get some more perspective, and to get firmly upbraided for my errors.

UPDATE 5: The new, improved and final version is now posted above {click to enlarge). There's a link to download a full-size version just to the right of this on the main idebar. Please feel free to use as you will, just as long as you mention that it originated here. And feel free to drop me a line telling me where it's ended up.

The Sistine Chapel. Everybody knows it. Tourists tramp through it. In a queue.

As a room, it’s just a room.

A room several stories high whose walls are decorated with art.

And what art! Some of the greatest art in the history of the world.

Louis Sullivan, one of my architectural heroes, spent three days in Rome in the late nineteenth century, two of them in the Sistine Chapel.

“Needless to say [says Sullivan’s biographer Hugh Morrison], it was Michelangelo’s great ceiling paintings which held him. Michelangelo became for him another [hero], and greater than Wagner. “Here Louis communed in silence with a Super-Man. Here he felt and saw and great Free Spirit. Here he was filled with the awe that stills. . . . Here was power as he had seen it in the mountains…, in the prairies, in the open sky. . . . Here was the living presence of a man who had done things in the beneficence of power.”

Q: Have you heard about McDonald's' new Obama Value Meal? A: Order anything you like and the guy behind you has to pay for it. (O'Brien)

Q: What does Barack Obama call lunch with a convicted felon? A: A fund raiser. (Leno)

Q: What's the difference between Obama's cabinet and a penitentiary? A: One is filled with tax evaders, blackmailers and threats to society. The other is for housing prisoners. (Letterman)

Q: If Nancy Pelosi and Obama were on a boat in the middle of the ocean and it started to sink, who would be saved? A: America ! (Fallon)

Q: What was the most positive result of the "Cash for clunkers" program? A: It took 95% of the Obama bumper stickers off the road. (Letterman)

But there’s more:

TOP TEN INDICATORS THAT YOUR EMPLOYER HAS CHANGED TO OBAMACARE

10. Your annual breast exam is done at Hooters.9. Directions to your doctor’s office include “Take a left when you enter the trailer park.”

8. Your health insurance policy now runs to one-thousand pages, is unreadable, and includes promises to buy back Louisiana.

7. The only pre-existing condition that isn’t covered is “Republican.”

6. The only item listed under Preventive Care Coverage is “An apple a day..”

5. Your primary care physician is wearing the coveralls you gave to Goodwill last month.

4. Where it says, “The patient is responsible for 200% of out-of-network charges,” it’s not a typographical error.

3. The only expense that is 100% covered is “embalming.”

2. Your Prozac comes in different colors with little M’s on them.

AND THE NUMBER ONE SIGN YOU’VE JOINED OBAMACARE:

1. You ask for Viagra and they give you a Popsicle stick and duct tape.

And finally,

Last Tuesday, as President Obama got off the helicopter in front of the White House, he was carrying a baby piglet under each arm.The squared away Marine guard snaps to attention, Salutes and says: “Nice pigs, sir.” The President replies “These are not pigs…these are authentic Arkansas Razorback Hogs. I got one for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and I got one for Speaker of The House Nancy Pelosi.” The squared away Marine again snaps to attention, Salutes and says, “Excellent trade, sir.”

Double whammy looms for landlords – In a massive tax grab by the National Party, the country’s most notorious bludger -- Bill English -- now wants to close a loophole whereby landlords can use losses on rental property investment to reduce their personal income and at the same time claim the Welfare for Working Families handout. I wonder if Bill will also close the loophole that forced the taxpayer to fund his Karori home to the tune of $1,000 a week despite the presence of two rather healthy incomes? He’s very concerned about a hypothetical landlord earning $100,000 a year, who uses the existing tax laws to quite legally reduce his income by about $18,000. What about the flesh-and-blood politician who uses parliamentary rules to make others subsidise his million dollar mansion? What about the incentives that encourage tax avoidance? If Bludger Bill is serious about stopping unjustified rorts on the taxpayer, here’s what he should do: firstly, as a goodwill gesture, stop all perks to parliamentarians; and secondly, abolish Welfare for Working Families so that well-off people can’t claim it (though I seem to recall the rather comfortable WWF poster family with its cell phones and iPod). Will he? Does he have the spine? No, because National has no intention of rolling back any of the welfarism and the massive public sector built up by Helen Clark and her administration over nine years. They are quite comfortable with half the country receiving handouts from the state, but they want to suck more of your money away in taxes. They can’t walk the talk, because they love Nanny.

2. Judges recall jurors sex break, use of ouija board – It’s high time the system that compels people to report for jury duty was reviewed. Such a system is analogous to military conscription, which to a libertarian reads as legalized slavery. This item recalls judges reports of reluctant jury members being dragged screaming back into courtrooms, and a juror who used a ouija board during a trial. These sorts of stories do not inspire confidence in the jury system. Perhaps an improvement on the status quo would be the development of agencies with pools of professional jurors who could be utilized for criminal court cases. This would tend to weed out the sort of dross we read about from time to time – those chronic underachievers who lack the concentration and intellect to analyse evidence and testimony, and whose inept behaviour often result in expensive mistrials. If the standards of our juries is to be raised, then the manifestly inadequate must no longer be forced into jury membership. Like paying for competent justice, the justice system should be able to pay for a jury of high standard.

“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny - when the government fear the people, there is liberty.”

When a famous tantric guru boasted on television that he could kill another man using only his mystical powers, most viewers either gasped in awe or merely nodded unquestioningly. Sanal Edamaruku’s response was different. ‘Go on then — kill me,’ he said.

And the barmy swami tried to. On live TV.

Millions tuned in as the channel cancelled scheduled programming to continue broadcasting the showdown, which can still be viewed on YouTube. “First, the master chanted mantras, then he sprinkled water on his intended victim. He brandished a knife, ruffled the sceptic’s hair and pressed his temples. But after several hours of similar antics, Mr Edamaruku was still very much alive — smiling for the cameras and taunting the furious holy man… “When the guru’s initial efforts failed, he accused Mr Edamaruku of praying to gods to protect him. ‘No, I’m an atheist,’ came the response. The holy man then said he needed to conduct a ritual that could only be done at night, outdoors, and after he had slept with a woman, drunk alcohol and rubbed himself in ash. “The men agreed to go to an outdoor studio that night — all to no avail. At midnight, the anchor declared the contest over. Reason had prevailed… “‘He was over, finished, completely destroyed!’ Mr Edamaruku chuckles triumphantly as he concludes the tale in the Rationalist Centre, his second-floor office in the town of Noida, just outside Delhi.

Nonsense is nonsense. As you can show when you have reality on your side.

Have a good laugh at the voodoo guru. Watch on You Tube: (Part 2 here; Part 3 here.)

Two great artists focus on the essentials of medicine. Eakins’s ‘Agnew Clinic’ (above) is of a piece with his earlier ‘Gross Clinic’ – two portrayals that “clearly take the relation of hand and mind as their subject. Mind is vividly represented in both…

“Eakins chooses to depict Gross and Agnew not in their studies as thinkers, but very much at work as doers. As surgeons and teachers in the midst of an operation, surrounded by hordes of others with various claims on their attention, they are in the middle of the most complex course of actions imaginable. This is a world in which action counts as much as thought–or, to put it more accurately, a world in which action can't be separated from thought.. “The point of both paintings is precisely the ways that [he surgeons] Gross and Agnew bridge the realms of thinking and doing. Eakins brings the point home to us through a series of contrasts in which the meaningful connection of the two realms–of being with doing, of mental impulses to manual expressions–is flawed or absent in various ways. There are dozens of arms and hands visible (and invisible) in both paintings, and their sheer number and prominence draw our attention to them, but one of the things we slowly realize is that there are only a few in which hand and mind are linked in a disciplined, productive relationship–one in which mind informs hand and hand informs mind…” [Ray Carney, “Forming the hand of the mind”]

And why, to highlight that relationship, would Eakins choose a surgeon as his subject? Let another great artist offer you a very timely answer from her greatest novel. The novel’s protagonist has just asked the “Dr Agnew’ of his day why he resigned:

‘I quit when medicine was placed under State control, some years ago,’ said Dr. Hendricks. ‘Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I would not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward. “ ‘I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything—except the desires of the doctors. Men considered only the 'welfare' of the patients, with no thought for those who were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter, was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said, only 'to serve.' “ ‘That a man who's willing to work under compulsion is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards—never occurred to those who proposed to help the sick by making life impossible for the healthy. I have often wondered at the smugness with which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind—yet what is it that they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands? Their moral code has taught them to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their victims. Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn. Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it—and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn't.’ " - Ayn Rand, in Atlas Shrugged

“To hear Democrats tell it, the Congressional Budget Office projects the legislation would cost a mere $940 billion over the next 10 years….the actual cost of the bill is nearly $3 trillion…. “Yet this legislation would set in motion political forces that would make additional spending inevitable…”

UPDATE 6:

THE TIMES (London), ‘ Barack Obama poised to win healthcare battle’: “The Bill, if passed, will bring near-universal health coverage to the US for the first time in the country’s history by requiring individuals to buy insurance and subsidise cover for those who cannot afford it… The passions fuelled by more than a year of furious argument from town hall meetings in Arizona to the floor of the Senate were on display again in Washington at the weekend.”

“Since the 1940s, on the idea that health care is a ‘right’ that others must provide, the government has made a growing number of Americans collectively responsible for each other’s care--through Medicare, Medicaid, and collectivized employer plans. These government programs incentivized people to spend much, much more on health care--since they were spending other people’s money--and warped the market. Without such intervention, we should expect health care to be like laser eye-surgery, which is not covered by Medicare or government insurance laws, but gets better and cheaper all the time. “America ‘can’t wait’--for the government to get out of health care. Disentangling government from that field is the task of true reform.”

Friday, 19 March 2010

At $200 per hour, blowing $3.4 million on prostitutes (if you’ll forgive the pun) works out at 17,000 hours--or around 5 hours a day for 9 years. Blame Bernard Hickey for the arithmetic. Blame Steven Versalko for the thieving. And blame Cactus Kate for wondering whether Versalko’s wife should ditch him now, or after the lesser of 6 years or $3.4 million is paid back by his hookers.

Productivity, productivity, productivity. “Ultimately, the idea of productivity is essential – and yet the statistics of it are not so useful.” Time to bring on a “Productivity Commission” then? Um… Productivity problems

Meanwhile, over in the lucky country, “’health and welfare’ jobs have just overtaken the retail sector in terms of employment. Currently 1 in 9 jobs is in health and social assistance…"It will keep getting bigger," says labour market specialist Mark Wooden…” Astonishing claim

An interesting anecdote about the iPredict market on Roger Douglas's Private Member's Bill allowing the youth minimum wage shows just how good insider trading is at letting the market know the information it needs in a timely—almost instant—fashion. Markets and information aggregation

Remember all that kerfuffle a week or so back about a Ministry of Women's Affairs paper on salary gaps, about which press releases were issued telling us that it would tell us that all women are underpaid. Now that the paper is available, and the media has moved on, we find however that it doesn’t tell us that at all. Reporting on pay gaps

When did bad choices become “addictions”? About the time everyone wanted an excuse for evading responsibility. More evidence here that the bad habits people like to call “addiction” are a choice, not a disease, from “a research psychologist at McLean Hospital and a lecturer at Harvard [who] mounts a devastating assault on the brain-based model of addiction”: Satel on Addiction

Paul Hsieh points out that government-run health systems—any government-run health system, not just ObamaCare—necessarily pits doctors against their Hippocratic Oath. It “places your doctor’s medical conscience directly on a collision course with government bureaucrats.” ObamaCare vs. the Hippocratic Oat

Now that the Democrats’ have gone post-modern, with plans to simply “deem” Obamacare into law without even bothering to hold a vote on it, it’s clear enough, says Ed Cline, from the suicidal abuse of power that Obamacare is “not just about health care. It’s about power. It’s about tyranny. It’s about destroying America.” Of Tom Hanks, the “Slaughter House,“ Polar Bears, and Bronx Cheers – RULE OF REASON

“This whole idea of passing a bill 'without explicitly voting for it' is the greatest evasion of legislative responsibility, the most blatant expression of contempt for the public, that I have ever seen from Congress." Robert Tracinski: "Now It's Up to the Bear"

“Krugman is right about one thing: this takeover is the culmination of decades of US government intervention in healthcare.” Reversing the takeover

Quin Hillyer says “I told you so.” “[Back in 2008] I warned about how if the Obamites couldn't win under the current rules, they would just change the rules or otherwise break them. The latest idea, the "Slaughter Solution," is just one such example.” Didn't I Warn About Alinsky?

Under the Constitution, two houses of Congress are required to pass a bill into law so that the President may sign it. Under the Pelosi Congress, the House merely needs to “deem” a bill into law without even being concerned about the Constitution. What’s the underlying premise here, aside from a desire to institute socialism and fascism at any cost? It’s the death of rationality as applied to our government. The United States Constitution was a document whose primary purpose was to put an objective check on men through elevating objective laws above the will of any one man (or woman). That Congress and the President are even considering such a proposal as “deeming” something into law – whether they ultimately get away with it or not – shows how far our nation has tumbled from any standard of rationality and objectivity. “What’s at stake here is not merely politics, but philosophy. Philosophy refers to more fundamental concerns such as the nature of reality and the means by which we assess reality. Do we require facts and proof to make our claims? Or do we merely wish or “deem” to be true whatever we feel to be true? Philosophy answers these questions. And philosophy sets the terms for the kind of government we will have. Once people give in to the notion that reality is whatever anyone feels they want it to be, the way is paved for dictatorship. A philosophy based on objective reality and reason gave rise to the original American concept of freedom and individual rights; the demise of rationality means the fall of our government as we once knew it. This goes well beyond the disastrous consequences of socialized medicine. Pelosi’s law of arbitrary will is now the law of the land. The law of the land is no longer the law of objective justice; it’s the law of sheer will and power.”

Duke Ellington’s 1927 masterpiece ‘Creole Love Call’ expresses the whole of love—from the sacred to the profane. Only jazz can do this. Here it is sung by Priscilla Baskerville for the movie Cotton Club.

The Krazy Economy blogger continues his basic series explaining “how the Fed works to expand bank credit, the Fed’s massive expansion of Member Reserve Deposits, and the steady decline in bank loans.” Good stuff to get you up to speed with what’s going on. Fed and the Money Supply: Details

Where did all that warming go? Here’s how National Geographic presented mid-century temps before warming became fashionable. Now, of course, alleged scientists have become more adept at hiding the subsequent decline. How did that cooling get massaged away?

According to M. Mitchell Waldrop, editorial page editor for Nature, “global-warming deniers . . . are sowing doubts about the fundamental [climate change] science.” Further, Waldrop argues in his op-ed “Climate of Fear, “scientists’ reputations have taken a hit.” Ignore the snarky reference to “deniers” and ask: is science and are scientists under attack? The answer is Yes. But who’s to blame? What Real Scientists Do: Global Warming Science vs. Global Whining Scientists

“The Global Warming/Climate Change charade is falling apart faster than the Democrats 2010 electoral fortunes. Falsified data, omitted relevant data, unreliable sources – the most prestigious propagators of the global warming case are beset with scandal after scandal.” Here are a few highlights from The Wreckage of the “Climate Consensus”

“The death rattle of the climate campaign will be deafening. It has too much political momentum and fanatical devotion to go quietly. The climate campaigners have been fond of warning of catastrophic “tipping points” for years. Well, a tipping point has indeed arrived​–just not the one the climate campaigners expected. “The lingering question is whether the collapse of the climate campaign is also a sign of a broader collapse in public enthusiasm for environmentalism in general. Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, two of the more thoughtful and independent-minded figures in the environmental movement, have been warning their green friends that the public has reached the point of “apocalypse fatigue.” They’ve been met with denunciations from the climate campaign enforcers for their heresy. The climate campaign has no idea that it is on the cusp of becoming as ludicrous and forlorn as the World -Esperanto Association.” In Denial

I do believe I’ve found my next Screen Saver/Desktop, courtesy of Despair.Com.

“On the surface, the US economy is recovering. Well, not even. It is stabilizing… Economists who never expected trouble, reacted to it in a predictably moronic way - they rushed to the rescue with more debt…. But here's the interesting point: by failing to address the real causes of the crisis, the feds only allowed those undercurrents to grow more powerful and more dangerous. “Economists can't tell a government job from a private sector job...and can't tell $1 of government spending from a dollar spent by the private sector...and can't tell a dollar's worth of GDP from a dollar's worth of real prosperity...which means, they can't tell the difference between what's happening on the surface to what's happening underneath.” Discuss. Who Can Blame Consumers for Being More Ready to Spend Money?

All the economists who either never saw the economic collapse coming or who actually helped to make it happen (these two groups overlap quite a lot, you understand) are still in there trying to “fix” what they never knew about anyway. They seem to think that business cycles come out of the blue, like earthquakes or cyclones. Not so. Not so. They’re entirely man-made, and entirely easy to understand. Business Cycles, Not Our Fault

“The question of whether we are headed into an inflationary or deflationary environment is probably one of the most important, complex and difficult questions to answer right now. For investors, getting this call right or at least thinking about the potential possibilities is absolutely crucial…So where are we? Ahhh...if only it were that easy.” Inflation or Deflation?

Free-riders? Who cares about them, says Yaron Brook, when “positive externalities” are so enormous.

Amy Mossoff talks about the experience of starting an Objectivist discussion group at her place, and the selfish value to her of doing it. "I started thinking about this project when I realized that the most important thing I get from my friends is intellectual stimulation. I noticed that when Adam and I have friends over – friends who share our philosophical views and take ideas seriously – the conversations we have make me feel great for days. Sometimes I learn something new from the content of the discussion, but more often than not, the important thing is that the exercise of my mind refuels me and puts me into a more active-minded mode than I would normally be in. After these visits, I feel charged up, energetic, and on my game. Everything I do is more intense, and I enjoy my routine much more.” There’s good stuff in the comments as well. My New Hobby

A few websites around the place have just discovered what was released in Ayn Rand’s journals back in 1996: that when the twenty-two year old Rand first arrived in the US from Bolshevik Russia, she planned a novel (which she never completed) based on a cold-hearted killer. Apparently that’s okay when you’re Truman Capote or Dostoyevsky, but not for Ayn Rand. Find the truth about the story here: Smearing Ayn: Rand, Nietzsche and the Purposeless MonsterRand's views on murderer William Hickman

I’ve just finished John Lewis’ magnificent book Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History, with lessons from history from Sparta to Hiroshima; from Sherman’s burning of Atlanta to the failure of pre-war appeasement of Hitler. Here he is talking on the lessons of that book for today. “With the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, America has accepted a permanent, institutionalized state of siege on its own soil. But is this the correct strategy? In this lecture Dr. John Lewis examines several examples from history—including Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome—in which great nations, facing attack, have acted defensively rather than with bold offense. The results are clear: such a policy is suicidal. Rather than bracing against further attacks at home or spreading “democracy” abroad, America should destroy her enemies. “But this strategic lesson needs a moral foundation….” WATCH HERE: The Failure of the Homeland Defense: The Lessons from History [66:41 min.]

The integrator of the whole of economics is . . . Say’s Law! (Well done there at the back.) The estimable Steven Kates (who, as it happens, sits on Australia’s Productivity Commission) explains how Say’s Law integrates the whole of economics; and how John Maynard Keynes never even understood, let alone refuted it. And look just how underhanded Keynes was . . . Watch Why Your Grandfather’s Economics Was Better Than Yours [57:00 min.]

Samizdata reports that “Western Australia has a population of 2.2 million people, and occupies an area of just over 2.6 million square kilometres. Just for reference, that is seven and a half times the size of Germany or alternatively ten times the size of Texas. “However, average house prices are amongst the highest in the world, as there is a shortage of land.” And wouldn’t you know it, there is: and it’s those same “smart-growth” arseholes that have made every other housing market so expensive who’ve done the same job in WA. It's time misguided land starvation was stopped

Here’s a neat idea for American history buffs—or for those who’d like to be. The project is called PatriotCast, and aims to be a “a real-time, online reenactment of the American Revolution. Or perhaps the best way to describe it would be a ‘Twit-enactment’.” Cool! “That’s right, PatriotCast will be using the increasing popular mini-blog/ social networking site as its platform to provide real-time, daily updates on the events that shaped this nation’s beginning. “Another way to think of it would be as if ‘Twitter’ were around during the 18th century and perhaps a large news corporation using twitter was following the politics and actions in America between the years of 1775 and 1783. “PatriotCast will reenact and in a way mirror those years between the years of 2010 and 2017, with tweets coming usually everyday (often multiple tweets per day) corresponding with the historical date. The tentative start date for the Twitter feed to activate will be April 1st of 2010 which would correspond with the historical date April 1st 1775, and so on for eight years.” Sounds like it’s worth signing up! PatriotCast ProjectPatriotCast at Twitter

From JazzOnTheTube: Chick Corea tells the story of the great 1930s cabaret pianist Fats Waller acknowledging Art Tatum as he entered the club one night. He announced to the crowd, "I am just a piano player, but tonight God is in the house." Born blind, it’s said that friends tricked him when he was a learning piano by buying a piano duet on disc and telling him it was played one-handed—which is how he went on to learn it. Here’s Art Tatum with ‘Willow Weep For Me.’